On World TB Day, on March 24, both the World Health Organization (WHO) and Partners in Health (PIH) raised the alarm that tuberculosis deaths are expected to rise due to medical resource diversions to deal with COVID-19. Estimates by the WHO of increased TB deaths are, “Between 2020 and 2025 an additional 1.4 million TB deaths could be registered as a direct consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.” PIH’s Dr. Michael Rich who is co-leader of the international endTB project thinks “400,000 additional deaths from TB this year alone,” could occur.
WHO’s December statement reports their modelling work on COVID’s impact on TB which showed “if the COVID-19 pandemic led to a reduction of 25%” in detection of TB for six months, “then we could expect a 26% increase in TB deaths.” This, WHO reports, would put the world back to 2012 levels of TB mortality. It further states that their 1.4 million estimate over the next five years are “likely conservative” due to other pandemic-related impacts on TB care. In particular, TB “treatment interruptions'’ will lead to “potentially greater transmission of the disease.”
PIH with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and UNITAID—the endTB partners—have partnered to run large multi-year trials for severe multi-drug resistant TB cases. The first new TB medicines in nearly 50 years, drive these trials, in six countries: Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Peru, India, Vietnam, and Pakistan. When the pandemic hit Peru and Kazakhstan hard, the endTB teams mobilized resources to keep the trials alive.
